Given the lead ship of her class (Hikawa Maru) is preserved is there no material on her from which you might extrapolate?
Regards,
M
M,
I have looked, there are relatively little quality photos available and the ones that are show the luxury cruise liner portions. I have used some material but to be honest it is not ideal.
David
1 Like
Hey all,
Not much of an update this week - spent most of my time yesterday dry brushing the shipping containers that will be in the cargo hold.
These are a combination of Five Star PE boxes and crates and their recently released 3d printed sundry containers and barrels. Without a doubt the 3d printed stuff is easier to work with and the set does include a number of opened containers that will be displayed top side - maybe with some 25mm barrels and other assorted resupply items.
I did order a set of Tamiya IJN degaussing cable - Hasegawa did not mold this on the kit and while there is no concrete evidence the Heain Maru had degaussing cable there is an illustration I found on a dive site that does indicate its presence. I would assume that it was there so I figured I would add it.
Thoughts from anyone as to the accuracy of this assumption?
Other than that all I got accomplished was laying some primer and primary colors on the crew.
If you have not seen them there is a company in Taiwan (ProStudio) that has released some new figures. I have 4 of the sets on hand and their new officer set in bound.
nicely detailed and spread out enough that they are easy to remove. You can see in the instructions below that they instruct you to cut the sprues apart - I did try this and recommend sawing them, but they are a little thick and it takes time.
Removal of the figures with cutting sprues does not result in broken legs as is prevalent with North Star. That being said when you do slip with the saw and forcibly remove a fire they break at the ankles right about the foot - will try and take a better picture tonight of figures that have been primed and painted.
Anyway, next weekend will be focused om putting together all of the torpedoes that will be spread around the scene.
After that I will develop the plan for priming the hull and getting ready to paint.
Thanks for stopping in.
David
5 Likes
Hello David, sorry but I am not able to help you with the degaussing cables. But the figure sets does look nice, much better distance between each figure than Northstarmodels indeed. This should be much more easy to paint and remove figures from the fret. Just the caps does look odd to me, as far as I know the IJN never had US style sailors caps, they had their distinct japanese caps which look different. At this scale maybe barely visible though…
Cheers
Thomas
@Black_sheep - good eye - be honest I did not even notice that. Your 100% right, the IJN wore more ball cap style head gear. I’ll point that out to the maker and see if they can adjust.
David
As far as the degaussing cable goes I am still unsure. I have seen a painted picture of the Hikawa Maru and the Hospital ship and it clearly has a degaussing cable. Granted that is a painting though.
Other than that here are some photos of the Heian Maru in her current state. You can see what COULD be degaussing cable in the picture but again I am not sure.
Got me
David
1 Like
Hi David,
Your work on the interior is straightforward, but the result is absolutely STUNNING! Somebody is going to have a treat looking down into the hold with the penlight when you are done!
2 Likes
Tim - Thank you sir - I appreciate the kind words, especially from a scratch build master as yourself.
David
Honestly David, if I can’t see it on the real thing, I don’t bother with putting it on the model 
3 Likes
Hey everyone - I know it has been a good bit of time since I updated this post so grab your popcorn - this will be a long one.
To start off - @Russelle - I generally agree - no evidence of said detail means i leave it off the kit - however there are few photos of the Heian Maru and none that show any detail so I am having to use a combination of information derived from the Combined Fleet Tabular Record of Movement. What is funny is that after researching dive photos and other webpages I went back to the Combined Fleet Page - sure enough on the 8th entry it describes that the degaussing cable was added on 15 October 1941. So I took the plunge and added it - more to follow on that note.
So I left off with my efforts to build a cargo hold for the forward mid cargo hold. Well that effort continued. It then occurred to me that I need to build four more cargo holds - so that is what I did. That being said I did not go into as much detail on the subsequent cargo holds as what will be seen through the access areas will be minimal - that plus it was taking too long.
So here are some photos of the cargo hold progression.
After that I used the MK1 IJN Outboard circuit set to add the degaussing cable. it was the only kit I could find that had pre-designed bends in the cable to wrap over the hull doors. I did have to make some adjustments to the double doors but in the end I think it worked well
Here she is with the degaussing cable along with a photo of the portable photo booth my wife bought me for fathers day!!
After the degaussing cable I went back to the cargo holds - well here they are through to the finish.
Here is the Heian Marue with the cargo holds installed and masked - preparing her for the primer.
Masking finally complete
And here she is with a coat of Mr. Finisher 1500 black.
That is how she sits for now - trying to figure out the best way to add the dazzle camo - think I have it figured out but with limited time and four different colors it will take me a few weeks to get it complete.
ok, maybe not as long as I though - but definitely more to come.
David
9 Likes
David, I think you may have forgotten something 
1 Like
LOL - no sir - you were just too fast - I write out the description on the computer and then go back to my phone to add the pictures - find it too difficult to type on my phone!!!
3 Likes
On the final picture you can see the IJN Tama - still need to complete a couple of steps to finally officially commission her - might get that done within the next couple of weeks.
1 Like
Lol … Duly noted Sir 
… Some lovely detailing going on there 
and the Tama looks very nice afloat. Lovely work
1 Like
David,
This is terrific work, I’m glad you’re back at it again! I am impressed by the work on the holds, with each space telling its own little story… really cool. Do you have any more through-the-hatch preview shots showing how these lovely spaces will ultimately look for the viewer?
1 Like
@Johnnych01 - thank you sir
@TimReynaga - thank you sir!! No I only took the picture for the mid forward hatch as it was the only one that fit evenly - the rest I had to finagle into position. Once I complete painting the dazzle and the deck I will have more photos through the hatch.
David
1 Like
Just catching up with this one and glad I did. Beautiful work so far but it will be a monster sized Dio…Cheers mark
1 Like
Not sure if this will help you “populate” the cargo holds, but I dove on the HEIAN MARU in 2006, in Truk Lagoon. She’s lying on her port side but looked intact. The cargo holds we had access to contained, amongst other things, two A6M Zeros, torpedoes, and large caliber shells (18" ?), with everything scattered about the holds as the ship rolled over and sank.
Cheers,
Chris, in Victoria, BC
1 Like
Great update, Dave.
The holds look good with all the detail.
And what a nice wife to buy a photo booth for you 
1 Like
What a great project,such detail !!!
1 Like